Mexican official ready to start NAFTA talks
Without the lead U.S. trade negotiator in place, Mexico doesn’t expect the White House to give Congress the 90 days of notice it needs to open formal talks on the North American Free Trade Agreement, Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said Tuesday. Given the 90-day requirement, the nations have already missed the May start date originally outlined by Mexican Foreign Relations Minister Luis Videgaray.
The delay increases the chances that negotiations will spill into 2018 and get mixed up with election-year politics in Mexico, something Guajardo has said should be avoided. Populist opposition candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who has led some public opinion polls, is an outspoken critic of U.S. President Donald Trump and has pledged to take a tough stance on trade talks.
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